Injustice in Health
Dear Patient,
On March 25, 1966, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said this:
“Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health is the most shocking and the most inhuman because it often results in physical death.”
Dr. King spoke these words at a press conference in Chicago, before his speech at the convention of the Medical Committee for Human Rights, referring specifically to the use of federal funds to support racial segregation in hospitals. Dr. King opposed all forms of segregation, but his words suggest he found segregated healthcare facilities particularly appalling.1
But notice that Dr. King referred not to injustice in healthcare, but in health. Health is more than hospitals and doctors’ offices and pharmacies and insurance. It’s air and food and clean water and neighborhoods free from violence. Health is how we live.
Today, nearly 60 years later, our hospitals are no longer segregated but injustice in health remains. It is still a cause of higher death rates and shorter life spans for oppressed and marginalized people in this country.
Injustice in health takes many forms. It means that African Americans have the highest mortality rate for all cancers combined compared with any other racial or ethnic group. It means the infant mortality rate for Black babies is almost twice the national average. It means Hispanic women are 20 percent more likely to die from cervical cancer than non-Hispanic white women.2 It means LGBTQ people experience higher rates of discrimination in healthcare settings.3 It means that COVID-19 has disproportionately affected Black, Indigenous, and Latinx people in this country with higher rates of severe illness and death.4
Injustice in health remains inhuman. Injustice in health continues to result in physical death. Has it become so entrenched in our society that we’re no longer shocked by it? I hope not.
Dr. King said something else after those words about injustice in health. He said this:
“I see no alternative to direct action and creative nonviolence to raise the conscience of the nation.”
I hope we all remember Dr. King’s words beyond today.
Love and gratitude,
Your Acupuncturist
https://pnhp.org/news/getting-martin-luther-kings-words-right/
https://www.americanprogress.org/article/health-disparities-race-ethnicity/
https://www.health.com/mind-body/lgbtq-health-disparities
https://www.healthline.com/health-news/why-black-native-american-and-latino-communities-experience-higher-covid-19-death-rates